MediaPlayer11 DVD player alternative on Vista

[Silvester]

MS Geniuses have not included codecs for playing DVDs on Media Player 11.
We're expected to buy them separately.

If anyone is interested I've been able to get a free DVD player that works
fine with Vista - try http://www.avsmedia.com/DVDPlayer/index.aspx

 

[Richard Urban]

Media Player plays store bought DVD's just fine. If you want to play other
types of DVD's it is up to you to obtain the necessary codecs.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

I'm guessing Mr. Urban, that you either bought a new PC with vista already on
it or upgraded from an XP install. In both cases teh computer would have
come with DVD decoders already installed (assuming dvds ran under XP). From
my own experience and that of everyone i've talked to, Vista does not come
with the necessary codecs to play DVDs. However as yet another alternative
DVD player, you can either download the klite codec pack which contains
codecs to play just about every media file format. Or you can use media
player classic (no connection to windows media player). Personally I'd use
media player classic as you dont have to install it. It's just a nice little
..exe file that runs a huge range of media formats quickly and efficiently.

 

[Richard Urban]

I installed Vista Ultimate RTM (same as you buy in the stores) on a new
computer I built. It plays DVD's fine.

If you are using a beta or pre-release version of Vista, it will not play
DVD's.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Silvester]

I'm running WinVista Business and MP11 doesn't play the DVD that I bought
from the store. Tells me codecs are missing and then points me to MS codec
pack shopping page. If I'm missing something, I'd be happy to look into
it...

 

[BChat]

I did a full install of Home Premium
then "Anytime Upgrade" to Ultimate
WMP 11 plays DVDs just fine.



I'm guessing Mr. Urban, that you either bought a new PC with vista already
on
it or upgraded from an XP install. In both cases teh computer would have
come with DVD decoders already installed (assuming dvds ran under XP). From
my own experience and that of everyone i've talked to, Vista does not come
with the necessary codecs to play DVDs. However as yet another alternative
DVD player, you can either download the klite codec pack which contains
codecs to play just about every media file format. Or you can use media
player classic (no connection to windows media player). Personally I'd use
media player classic as you dont have to install it. It's just a nice
little
..exe file that runs a huge range of media formats quickly and efficiently.

 

[canixs]

I think only Vista Home premium and Ultimate version came with Dvd decoder.

 

[Adam Albright]

I did a full install of Home Premium
then "Anytime Upgrade" to Ultimate
WMP 11 plays DVDs just fine.



I'm guessing Mr. Urban, that you either bought a new PC with vista already
on it or upgraded from an XP install. In both cases teh computer would have
come with DVD decoders already installed (assuming dvds ran under XP). From
my own experience and that of everyone i've talked to, Vista does not come
with the necessary codecs to play DVDs.

To play a standard format DVD in the United States it is encoded as a
MPEG-2 file as preliminary step in order to conform to the NTSC
(National Television System Committee) standard of 29.97 interlaced
frames of video per second. See below link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC

Most of the rest of the world uses PAL another encoding scheme.

All MPEG-2 encoders/decoders are licensed by the MPEG Group who's full
name is the Moving Picture Experts Group.

http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/

If or not a DVD plays on your computer depends on if or not you have a
application installed that paid the licensing fee to the MPEG group
for the right to distribute a decoder/encoder based on the various
patents they hold. Bottom line, Microsoft is TOO CHEAP to include this
in the versions that don't support Media Center. I'm not even sure it
comes with versions that do have Media Center. So the business version
won't by itself play DVD's unless you have something ELSE in the way
of a third party application on your system that has paid the
licensing fee and has installed the necessary MPEG-2 CODEC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec